By Joseph Kingston
Calabar
A member of the House of Representatives (Bakassi, Akpabuyo and Calabar South), onourable Essien Ekpenyong Ayi, has berated the federal government over its inability to resettle isplaced Bakassi people, 12 years after ceding the peninsular to Cameroon.
Speaking to our reporter, yesterday, in Anantigha, Calabar South of Cross River state, Ayi said while hundreds of the displaced people who are now putting up temporarily at St Mark’s Primary School, Akpabuyo are daily crying for a place they could call their own, others are squatting with relatives in Ikang and Calabar South without hope of government’s intervention.
Ayi said he had, through numerous motions in the House, drew the attention of the federal government to the plight of the Bakassi people, adding that if a group of people within a state could, by themselves, approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the issue, Bakassi natives would have done so.
“Few years ago, I moved a motion for the speedy resettlement of the displaced people. I later moved a motion asking the federal government to take step for the review of that ICJ judgement in 2012. I also moved a motion for a plebiscite for Bakassi people. Those motions were passed but nothing concrete came out from government”, he lamented.
